County catalogs Barrington culverts

BARRINGTON—Barrington is the first town in Yates County to complete a digital highway department inventory and ranking of work that needs to be done.
Rick Ayers, employee of the Yates County Soil and Water Conservation District, said Barrington focused on the town’s culverts. He explained that without a $20,500 grant from Sen. George Winner’s office, the town would never have been able to accomplish the inventory.
Soil and Water did the cataloging of the town’s culverts, by going to and photographing each of the 302 culverts during the winter. Ayers said the town lost similar information it had on the condition of culverts in a fire. In addition to getting that information back, this pilot program also includes GPS locations for each town-owned culvert, what it is made of, and any maintenance issues.
Now, all of the information will be kept digitally, as well as in print. Highway Superintendent Steve Wheeler will be able to update a computer database with any changes the town makes from this point onwards.
“It was a pretty large task,” said Ayers.
He called it an “in between project” that Soil and Water did around other duties. Ayers explained the project came about just from working with Wheeler on other general projects.
He said the cataloging can be used for in-house budgeting, helping the town know which culverts need repairs the most. Ayers added, the database increases the town’s chances for getting Federal Emergency Management Assistance (FEMA) funds.
Ayers said he would like to see other municipalities do inventories like this. However, he said the time and cost needed to complete it make it difficult to complete. Ayers added that it may be something a municipality could do over several years.